This film moves across two time periods and focuses on the aftermath of a radical resistance movement after it’s been dismantled. It’s less about the movement itself and more about what’s left behind, the people, the damage, and the systems that quietly survive it.
It opens very strong. The very first scene is nearly perfect, goosebump inducing orchestral music starts to play while Teyana Taylor walks back and forth on a bridge that overlooks a detention center. It immediately pulls me in and sets a serious and ominous tone for the film.
Paul Thomas Anderson is totally stepping outside his usual lane here. I’m a big fan of the work he did with Thom Yorke on Anima so seeing him step further outside his usual narrative style made me genuinely curious about what he’d do here.
Unfortunately, the first twenty minutes that follows was super hard for me to watch. Mind you, the film is already three hours long like most of his films, a whole lot of nothing was happening and it could have been much tighter.
Some of the dialogue were off putting and came off super cheesy and cringe worthy. I eventually got over it once the film finds its footing, it becomes hard to look away.
The tension builds steadily, the pacing tightens, and the story turns unpredictable in a way that actually works. I was fully locked in for most of it.
The atmosphere carries a lot of weight, and the film never becomes safe or forgettable, which already sets it apart from a lot of what’s coming out right now.
Is it perfect? No.
Some dialogue doesn’t land.
The beginning of the film could have been much tighter.
But the story is bold and original. It takes risks most films avoid. It’s Paul Anderson coded messy and it feels alive. And I’ll always take a flawed film that tries to say something over a polished one that says nothing.
There’s no clean resolution here, no satisfying wrap up. That also feels deliberate. The film is about what happens after a resistance is dismantled, how consequences linger, how power reshapes itself, and how the past refuses to stay buried.
Would I call it thrilling? Yes.
Would I recommend it? Yes, if you’re okay with tension, discomfort, and chaos instead of comfort.
This is a film about aftermath.
And how nothing really ends, it just changes form.
Honestly, Vanessa 